


Onward And Upward

by TheStrangeSeaWolf



Series: The Tinkerer [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Good Wishes, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:14:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21989335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStrangeSeaWolf/pseuds/TheStrangeSeaWolf
Summary: The Doctor’s father is visited by the Doctor. Only that he has no idea his son regenerated…The Tinkerer is the Doctor’s father and a travelling engineer with his own TARDIS. If you want to learn how the Doctor met his parents, readMother’s Dayfirst. But this story also works without the background information.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan & Graham O'Brien & Ryan Sinclair
Series: The Tinkerer [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1623469
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	Onward And Upward

**Author's Note:**

> As the Thirteenth Doctor embarks into a new season, I wanted to write a story to wish her well. Here it is!

The Tinkerer stepped out of the supermarket, pulled his flat cap tighter and looked down to the building site. It was probably the only contractor’s shed in the whole universe that looked like a supermarket, but the chameleon circuit of his TARDIS was stuck in shuffle mode. At least that was what she told him. Secretly he assumed she just came up with the most inadequate looks on purpose, just to annoy him. 

His eyes searched the road leading from the valley up to the building site and he desperately hoped to see the truck delivering the spare parts for the tunnel drilling machine would show up there very soon. They were way behind schedule.

Suddenly he narrowed his eyes. Four people walked up the dirt track from the building site. Two women, two men and none wore a safety helmet. He couldn’t recall having seen them before, but he sure needed to have a word with them about health and safety.

As they approached, the blonde woman started to run towards him.

“Daddy!” She screamed and hugged him enthusiastically, making him stumble a few steps backwards.

Daddy? He sure had some slip-ups when he was younger, but as far as he recalled the only consequences were that he was banned from a few pubs on New Caledonia 2 and he never finished that monastery on Saint Suppidippus because the Reverend Mother had dismissed him after she caught him with that cute novice in the refectory.

As far as he knew he only had a son and that curly haired prat was travelling time and space in a police box, fighting monsters, causing ripples and tidal waves and never thinking about visiting his old father.

“Uhm, I sure don’t mind being hugged by a beautiful woman, but I’m a bit old-fashioned and would like to introduce myself, first,” he mumbled against the fabric of her coat.

He felt her grip loosen and she took a step back.

“Oh, ehem, sorry, didn’t think about it, ehm, yes, so, hi, Dad, I regenerated, big-time, great explosion, fell out of the TARDIS, absolutely brilliant, you would have loved to see it,” she babbled, “I’m a woman now, how do you like it?” And with that last sentence she spun around, sending her long coat flying. When she faced him again, she smiled all over her round face with gleaming eyes.

Oh, this sure was a surprise. Technically, he knew that Time Lords were not fixed to a gender, but his son had always regenerated in male form. He had assumed that this was due to his human heritage and he would always be stuck as male.

He put his hands on her shoulders and eyed her closely. Then he smiled back and gave her a big bear hug.

“I think it’s a big improvement, son, ahem… daughter!”

He corrected himself as he ruffled her hair to secretly search for the little scar that would tell him if she really was his child. It was there where it always had been since the knife attack prior to the child’s birth. His smile broadened.

“I always would have loved to have a daughter,” he confessed as he loosened his grip and let his big hand linger on her cheek for a moment. She beamed at him and her smile sure resembled the grin of his son. It always reminded him of an insane werewolf.

“Don’t you want to introduce me to your friends?” He asked.

“Oh, oh, sure, that’s Yaz.”

The young woman stepped forward and he bowed and kissed her hand. Yasmin smiled, obviously confused by the antiquated gesture. He loved doing it, because people didn’t know what to make of it.

“Delighted to meet you, Yaz. I notice the Doctor’s habit of choosing companions with eyes that radiate beauty and intelligence hasn’t changed,” he remarked, winking at her. Yaz blushed.

“And that’s Ryan and Graham,” the Doctor continued, ignoring her father’s flirtatious remark.

The Tinkerer shook hands with both men.

“Father and son?” He asked.

Both men looked uncomfortable with the question.

“I’m the husband of his late grandmother,” Graham said, sadness in his voice.

The Tinkerer looked from one to the other and he couldn’t help it. He pulled both into a group hug. He still missed Penelope and he was someone who needed to express his compassion with his actions, not his words.

“I’m so sorry for your loss! That must be hard for both of you!”

“Thanks,” both mumbled, obviously confused by his emotional outbreak.

“Oh, well,” he remarked when he finally let go of the two, “I’m forgetting my manners, may I invite you for some tea?”

“Sure! Tea is great! I love tea!” His daughter beamed. The rest of her companions shrugged and nodded.

“Come on in, then!”

“Tea in a supermarket?” Graham asked confused.

“Oh, don’t worry, it’s the contractor’s shed for this building site and my office as chief engineer,” he explained. The Doctor grinned while her companions exchanged confused looks.

“I see your TARDIS is still not decided how she likes to look like?” The Doctor remarked.

“Oh, well, sometimes I think there’s nothing wrong with the chameleon circuit, the old girl is just making fun of me.”

The Tinkerer’s TARDIS immediately gave a protesting sound.

Inside, the TARDIS looked as it always had looked, although there were muddy footprints all over the place.

“She gave up tiding after me. She says having workers and an engineer in the house is like having kids and a family dog,” he apologized and led them to the Scottish tearoom. The window allowed to monitor most of the building site.

The TARDIS had already prepared some tea and scones. He looked over to his daughter and realized with a smile that she scooped exactly the same ridiculous amount of sugar in her tea as he did.

After some small talk he finally took the courage to ask:

“What…” he swallowed the expression ‘ridiculously crazy, irresponsible and probably totally unnecessary adventure’ because it was the first time the Doctor visited him without him having to ask for it, and he didn’t want it to be the last time, “killed you this time, Doctor?” He finished the question instead.

The Doctor sat her cup down and recounted the events that led to her latest death and regeneration. While she was visibly affected and still grieving about the companions, friends and settlers she lost, as soon as it came to her own death, she seemed to be completely oblivious. 

Before the eyes of the whole family who watched in a mixture of horror and awe, she even stood up and reenacted the whole last battle, including cybermen attacks and explosions.

The Tinkerer couldn’t even watch some of it, because his hearts cramped imagining the pain his son must have endured. He had to close his eyes to ease the pain.

The Doctor could even cite the whole long legacy and words of wisdom her predecessor left her, including the part about not eating pears.

When she finished, she wore a happy smile as she turned to her three companions, stretched out her arms and exclaimed.

“And then you came into my life, it is so brilliant!”

When he looked into their faces, he saw Yaz looking at his daughter with deep affection and excitement, Ryan with respect and curiosity, and Graham with awe and slight hints of fear.

The Tinkerer was thankful that his daughter was still alive, but there was a nagging fear inside him because she didn’t seem to care for her own life. He loved her with both his hearts, and he couldn’t stand the thought of losing her.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door and Sam peeked in. Sam was a Gebb’Charb, a squid-like species with eight long arms that could be used both as hands and feet.

“Sorry to disturb your meeting, Sir, but the spare parts arrived, and I think you should supervise the assembly personally, if you don’t mind.”

“Thank you, Sam. This is my daughter and her friends Yaz, Ryan and Graham. Family, this is Sam, my assistant, better: my right hands.”

“Hello there, family of the Tinkerer!”

Sam looked with two of his four eyes and waved six of his eight arms at them. 

The Tinkerer sighed and got up.

“Sorry I have to leave you. We have waited for these parts to arrive for days and we are already behind our schedule.”

“It’s okay, Dad, I just thought we could drop by, once we are in this area,” the Doctor said.

“She promised us an excursion without the immediate danger of being killed,” Graham added.

“Oh, well, then I’ll suggest that you either use the official road back or, if you insist on using the dirt path that crosses our site, to wear safety helmets,” he laughed.

He hugged Yaz, Ryan and Graham and wished them safe travels. Then he finally turned to his daughter. He took her face in his big hands and softly stroked her eyebrows with his thumbs.

“I kind of miss your attack eyebrows, but these are really nice, too,” he said, before he wrapped his long arms around her body and pulled her close to his chest. He sighed and thought about how to word what he wanted to say.

“I want you to know that what I say next I don't say because you are a woman now. I know what you are capable of and I respect that it is your job to help the people in need in this universe. I’m proud of who you are and what you are doing.

But when I finally met my adult son, he was already in his thirteenth incarnation, something that was only possible because someone had convinced the Time Lords to grant him a second regeneration cycle.

And now you are already the next incarnation. I’m worried that you will use up that new regeneration cycle in a blink of an eye. I already lost your mother. It would be unbearable to lose you, too. I want you to stand on my grave and not the other way ‘round.”

He took a deep breath and looked down into the eyes of his brave daughter, the Doctor, the Oncoming Storm and the Destroyer of Worlds. He smiled at her.

“Oh, to heck with it! You know what I want to say. I believe in you and you are strong, but you are not indestructible. So, just try to stay alive, if not for your own sake or mine, then at least for this universe and for the worlds you vowed to protect, okay?”

“I promise; I’ll try!” She smiled as they held each other tight once again.

Sam made a sound that was probably similar to a human clearing the throat.

“Sir, the drilling machine…”

“Oh, yes, Sam, I’m coming!” He took one more look at his daughter and her three companions. At least his child was always extremely talented in picking good companions.

“Safe travels!” He shouted as he waved goodbye and headed for the door.

“Sir, you really should wear a safety helmet,” he heard his assistant behind him, probably desperately holding one in one of his hands.

“I told you time and again, this is a safety flat cap,” he answered as he pulled it deeper in his face and started downhill towards his tunnel.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope we will see a great season 12 with 13.  
> And a happy 2020 everybody!


End file.
